These 8 Terrifying Serial Killers Have Never Been Caught And Could Be Living Amongst Us

The FBI has admitted that they believe there are 40 active serial killers committing multiple murders in America at any given time.

Some, thankfully, get caught and are taken off the streets and punished for their crimes. When they are removed from society everyone starts to believe that once again their streets will be safer.

But, what if they're not caught? What if multiple victims are found that have suffered at the hands of someone who is never brought to justice? Some of these killers commits crimes and then vanish, or simply work under the radar and are never suspected by police.

Here are some cases of serial killers that have never been caught or brought to justice for their crimes.

8. The Freeway Phantom

In Washington D.C. between April 1971 and September 1972, six young African-American girls were murdered, all aged between 10-18. Raped, they were then strangled.

The note above was left inside the jacket pocket of his fifth victim, Brenda Woodward, who was just 18. Police say that it was Brenda who wrote it after being told to by the Phantom, using paper from her own notebook.

The victims of the freeway phantom

His second victim, Brenda Crockett, aged just 10, called her sister after being abducted and said, “A white man picked me up, and I’m heading home in a cab,” and gave a hint that she was probably in Virginia, after being taken and then forced to travel with her soon to be killer.

Many individuals and a group called Green Vega Rapists were named as suspects and interrogated but none were convicted due to the lack of significant evidence. As time passed, various case files along with the leads were lost and many investigators who studied this case either retired or passed away and the case never got solved.

7. The Frankford Slasher

Police sketch of suspect

From 1985 to 1990, the Frankford neighborhood of Philadelphia was shaken by a series of unsolved murders.

52-year-old Helen Patent was the first victim, found in a railway maintenance yard on August 8, 1985. She had 19 stab wounds and had been sexually assaulted. Naked from the waist down, her blouse had also been pushed up, exposing her chest.

Five months later, 68-year-old Anna Carroll was found stabbed to death in her apartment. Like the first victim, she was nude from the waist down and had her blouse pushed up.

Over the next four years the "Slasher" would claim several more victims. Witnesses often saw the victims with a middle-aged white man, shortly before their deaths.

However, when 46-year-old Carol Dowd was found murdered behind a fish market in 1990, authorities looked at one of the employees, Leonard Christopher, as a suspect.

Given a life sentence for her murder, police also accused him of being the Frankford Slasher, but, he was black, so did not fit the description given by witnesses of a "white male." In fact, the Slasher murdered Michelle Dehner, the woman believed to be his last victim, after Christopher was already sent to prison.

Many people still think that Leonard Christopher did not kill Carol Dowd and was not the Frankford Slasher, and is an innocent man. If that is true, the real killer continues to get away with murder.

6. Bible John

Police Sketch

Three young Scottish women were murdered at the hands of a man police came to call "Bible John."

One survivor, Jean Puttock, who was the sister of victim Helen Puttock, shared a taxi with him and her soon-to-be-murdered sister. She said he had said his name was John Pemberton and he extensively quoted passages from the Bible, and called the dance halls where he'd met the women 'Dens of iniquity.'

After Jean and her date exited the cab, Helen continued on with John, only to be found dead the next morning. The man disappeared without a trace.

Newspaper appeal

All three of his victims were strangled using their own stockings, and all were menstruating when they were killed. This seemed to be known by the killer as pads and tampons were found laying next to the bodies.

The man disappeared without a trace, and has never been caught.

5. Charlie Chop-Off

Erno Soto

On March 9, 1972, the body of an 8-year-old African-American boy named Douglas Owen was found on a Manhattan rooftop. He had been savagely stabbed 38 times, his penis was mutilated, and he had been sodomized.

One month later, another 10-year-old black youth was stabbed and subjected to genital mutilation, but ultimately wound up surviving. Over the next 12 months , two 9-year-old boys, Wendell Hubbard and Luis Oritz, would be stabbed to death before having their penises removed, which led to the killer being nicknamed “Charlie Chop-Off.”

On August 8, 1973, an 8-year-old black boy named Steven Cropper was murdered on a rooftop with a straight razor, but did not suffer any genital mutilation. In 1974, a man named Erno Soto, pictured above, was arrested after making a failed attempt to abduct a Puerto Rican boy and he eventually confessed to the murder of Steven Cropper.

Witnesses had given his description to police saying he had been recruiting young boys to run errands for him.

He had a history of mental illness, but he did confess to murder, but the validity of his confession was dubious, and due to him being in and out of mental hospitals, it was unknown where he was at the times the murders were committed.

Saying to police he "was told by God to turn little boys into little girls" he was found not guilty by reason of insanity, but remains the most likely suspect.

4. West Mesa Bone Collector

In February 2009, a dog walker made a gruesome discovery. A human bone was protruding from the ground in West Mesa, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

When police arrived, they uncovered the largest crime site in US history, where the remains of eleven women were found.

Dubbed "The Bone Collector," all of the victims were prostitutes, police say that sex workers make easy targets as they are more likely to go with someone in their car, be drug users that need to fund habits, and sadly, they are less likely to be reported as missing or gain media attention due to the nature of their profession.

nail found on crime scene

No DNA, no potential murder weapons, no possible character descriptions, no witnesses, no incriminating evidence has ever been found to help bring the killer to justice.

3. The I-70 Killer

Police Sketch

The 2,100-mile I-70 that runs from Baltimore, Maryland to Cove Fort, Utah became the workplace for an unidentified serial killer in 1992.

The killer would visit random businesses in close proximity to Interstate 70 and indiscriminately shoot the employees. The first victim was an Indianapolis shoe store clerk named Robin Fuldauer, who was murdered on April 8, 1992.

Three days later, the killer burst into a bridal shop in Wichita, Kansas and forced the two employees, Patricia Magers and Patricia Smith, into the back room before shooting them. A male customer just happened to walk into the store when the armed suspect emerged from the back, but for some unknown reason he let the witness go.

Appearing again on May 7, an employee named Sarah Blessing was shot to death at a gift shop in broad daylight at a Raytown, Missouri mall.

However, this time, there were witnesses. Given eyewitness accounts, the police managed to obtain an accurate description of the suspect that matched other witness statement at the previous murder scenes.

However, even with an accurate description and with many suspects, he has yet to be positively identified.

2. The Zodiac Killer

Police Sketch

The Zodiac Killer was known for his taunting of the press and police. Sending letters and coded clues, he infuriated those working on the case while on his killing spree in the late 1960s to early 1970s.

He has five confirmed victims, with the possibility of 20-28 more, but he himself has confessed in his letters to his victim count being 37.

His first victims David Arthur Faraday, 17, and Betty Lou Jensen, 16, were shot and killed on December 20, 1968, on Lake Herman Road, within the city limits of Benicia.

Michael Renault Mageau, 19, and Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin, 22 were shot on July 4, 1969, in the parking lot of Blue Rock Springs Park in Vallejo. While Mageau survived the attack, Ferrin was pronounced dead on arrival at Kaiser Foundation Hospital.

Bryan Calvin Hartnell, 20, and Cecelia Ann Shepard, 22, were stabbed on September 27, 1969, at Lake Berryessa in Napa County. Hartnell survived eight stab wounds to the back, but Shepard died as a result of her injuries on September 29, 1969.

Paul Lee Stine, 29 was shot and killed on October 11, 1969, in the Presidio Heights neighborhood in San Francisco.

A movie based on the elusive killer shows the gruesome brutality of his crimes. Please be warned, this clip is not for the faint hearted.

1. Jack The Ripper

The most infamous of all unsolved crimes has to be Jack The Ripper. The savagery of his crimes shook the city of London and became front page news all over the globe.

The slums of London were known to be treacherous, with street crime rife and many women wandered the streets, making money as prostitutes. Each time he killed, the brutality escalated, from victims being cut open and mutilated, to having their organs removed.

First dubbed the "Whitechapel Murders," they all happened in one small area of East London. His five confirmed victims were Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly.

Committed around 1888, the likelihood of positively proving the identity of the crazed killer is slim, although there were theories that the killer could have been an a celebrated surgeon, and even a past King of England, who had been driven mad by syphilis.